One year on from Ashling Murphy's death has anything really changed? 

Since 23-year-old Ashling Murphy was killed, on a bright afternoon in Tullamore while out for a run, 11 more women died in violent circumstances, with 2022 the worst year in a decade for violence against women, writes Liz Dunphy

Ashling Murphy’s death sparked such international anger and loud national outcry that it was described by many as a watershed moment.

Ashling Murphy’s name will be heard in homes and workplaces across Ireland on Thursday and hundreds will gather solemnly at vigils to mark the one-year anniversary of her tragic death.

The 23-year-old primary school teacher has become a powerful symbol of the senseless destruction and extreme horror of femicide — a crime lazily accepted as inevitable for too long.

Dedicated, kind, dynamic and relatable, Ms Murphy brought so much light, love and laughter to the world in her too-short life that she was widely described as “luminous”.

She had been teaching for less than one year at Durrow national school after graduating as a primary school teacher and was a talented traditional Irish musician. 

Her life, at just 23, was bursting with promise.

But she went for a run after work on a bright January afternoon and this most routine of days would end in horror.

She was attacked on the Grand Canal in Tullamore, a popular place people went to seek refuge, nature and peace.

Jozef Puska, 31, with an address of Lynally Grove, Mucklagh, Co Offaly, is accused of murdering Ms Murphy.

His trial is set to begin at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin on June 3.

That stretch of canal where she died is called Fiona’s Way after Fiona Pender, a 25-year-old Tullamore woman who disappeared while seven months pregnant in 1996.

Bruna Fonseca was killed on New Year's Day.

Every year is punctuated by the names of these women who died violently or disappeared. Some, like Ms Murphy and Ms Pender, become ingrained in the collective consciousness and elicit questions about how these senseless crimes keep occurring.

Ashling Murphy’s death sparked such international anger and loud national outcry that it was described by many as a watershed moment.

Thousands of people lit candles and laid flowers at vigils all over the world for Ms Murphy in the days after her death.

Yet despite much debate and vows for cultural change, 2022 was the worst year in a decade for violence against women.

Twelve women died in violent circumstances last year.

Their names are: Ashling Murphy, Sandra Boyd, Mary (Maura) Bergin, Ruth Lohse, Louise Mucknell, Lisa Thompson, Larisa Serban, Miriam Burns, Lisa Cash, Ioana Mihaela Pacala, Sharon Crean, and Bruna Fonseca.

Additionally, two pregnant women were murdered in late December: in the North, Natalie Mc Nally, and Dublin woman Ailish Walsh, killed in London.

Not all of these 12 women’s names are known as well as Ashling Murphy’s, but all their deaths have caused immeasurable, irreversible pain, leaving children without mothers, parents without daughters, siblings without sisters and friends without their most treasured friends.

Since 1996, 254 women have died violently in Ireland, according to Women’s Aid’s Femicide Watch.

Twenty children were also killed during incidents where women died violently over this period.

A total of 161 women have been killed in their own homes (63%) and one in every two femicide victims is killed by a current or former male intimate partner (55% of resolved cases).

And women under the age of 35 make up 50% of femicide cases in Ireland.

But each death, each attack, slowly, hopefully sparks some change.

Femicide is the result of an extreme male sense of entitlement to women — to their bodies and to their lives.

The anniversary of Ms Murphy's death falls in the same week as misogynist influencer Andrew Tate is also in the news.

Andrew Tate was arrested on charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania in late December and this week lost appeals against his detention and the confiscation of his assets. Picture: AP Alexandru Dobre

Tate openly embodies that same toxic masculinity and deep misogyny that has caused so much pain and destruction for centuries. His messages are transmitted to millions via social media, with some platforms even promoting his deeply worrying content.  

Tate once said he moved from the UK to Romania because rape laws were more lenient there. 

But he was arrested on charges of rape and human trafficking in Romania in late December and this week lost appeals against his detention and the confiscation of his assets. 

In a world where such hate-fuelling content can quickly gain mass online traction, dismantling the underpinning systems of belief that allow such views to perpetuate is more important than ever. The case also highlights the importance of having robust laws which can prosecute and constrain abuse and wrongdoing when it is found. 

And Ms Murphy's death has forced a wider understanding of the need to unpick the underlying causes of gender-based violence and to legislate robustly against it. 

Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced a ‘zero tolerance’ strategy on domestic, sexual and gender-based violence after Ms Murphy’s death.

And in June, that five-year strategy, the third national strategy on gender-based violence, was published.

It aims to create a society which does not accept domestic, sexual and gender-based violence — or the attitudes which underpin it — and warned that it would require whole of government and community effort to create an Ireland where gender-based violence is not tolerated.

It pledged its €363m investment would double the number of refuge spaces and improve services and supports for victims of domestic and gender-based violence.

A statutory agency for domestic, sexual and gender-based violence is to be established under the strategy by January, 1, 2024.

Primary and secondary school curricula are to be updated to include teachings on consent, coercive control, domestic violence and safe use of the internet.

The maximum sentence for assault causing harm — a common domestic abuse offence — is to be doubled from five to 10 years.

And public awareness campaigns are to be launched to challenge existing myths and biases.

Justice Minister Simon Harris also recently promised to enact multiple new laws in the first six months of this year to target domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

The maximum sentence for assault is to be doubled from five years to 10 years, in line with the zero tolerance’ strategy.

Laws are to be enacted before the summer to make stalking and strangulation stand alone criminal offences.

A new law to increase the monitoring of sex offenders, including through the use of electronic tagging, will pass all stages before the summer, Mr Harris said.

The scene at the Grand Canal in Tullamore where Ashling Murphy was killed last January. Picture: Colin Keegan/Collins

And a major new sexual offences bill will aim to strengthen the rights of victims.

The National Women’s Council (NWC) said although the Government’s zero tolerance strategy is an ambitious plan, implementation and funding are key.

The NWC said violence against women was epidemic and Government must take immediate steps to address it.

Ireland still does not have enough refuge beds for women fleeing domestic violence — despite this problem being acute now for many years.

The family court system needs urgent reform to meet the needs of these same women and their children and to hold perpetrators to account.

The domestic homicide review is still to be completed by Government and there is an urgent need to collect better data to understand the prevalence of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence (DSGBV) in the country. These are all criteria under the Istanbul Convention which Ireland ratified in 2019, the NWC said.

A vigil at Leinster House, Dublin, last January after Ashling's murder. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

“The whole country mourned the death of Ashling Murphy, and since then 11 more women have lost their lives to male violence against women in the Republic, including Bruna Fonseca on New Year’s Day. In Northern Ireland, Natalie McNally was the fourth woman to be killed in her own home last year,” NWC director Orla O’Connor said.

“Alongside measures to deal with perpetrators of DSGBV and to support victims, we must also tackle the root causes of this epidemic,” Ms O’Connor said.

“We must educate our children about the misogyny that underlies male violence against women. There is a gap left by our education system, and dangerous and harmful messages like Andrew Tate’s are filling it. The consequences of this for women’s safety are plain to see.” 

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre also noted the State had made progress in recognising and taking action on violence against women in the year since Ms Murphy's death, but that efforts must be sustained and stepped up to eradicate this scourge on our society.

“Our hearts go out to the Murphy family and Ashling’s friends and loved ones on this sad anniversary," chief executive Noeline Blackwell said. 

"The outrage and disquiet we still see after this terrible event reminds us all that violence against women and gender-based violence generally remain a critical problem in our society which can and must be substantially reduced. 

"Today and every day, people in Ireland will suffer grievous harm as a result of abuse, and as we have seen in the past year, some also suffering the ultimate abuse of another person ending their lives.

“We remind everyone who has been abused or assaulted that it is never, ever their fault and that those who carry out such abuse are wrong.” 

An anniversary Mass marking one year since the death of Ms Murphy will take place in her local parish church in Mountbolus on Thursday.

A vigil will also be held at the memorial erected for Ms Murphy at the canal where she was killed.